When Carl awakens from a coma after being attacked on a subway train, life around him feels unfamiliar, even strange. He arrives at his best friend's house with

On a snowy Friday night in 1979, just hours after making love for the first time, Richard's girlfriend, high school senior Karen Ann McNeil, falls into a coma.

What occurs within coma? What does the coma patient experience? How does the patient perceive the world outside of coma, if at all? The simple answer to these q